I have managed to acquire an extra copy of Andreas J. Köstenberger and Richard D. Patterson’s, Invitation to Biblical Interpretation: Exploring the Hermeneutical Triad of History, Literature, and Theology(Kregel Academic, 2011). This volume approaches the text via the historical/literary/theological method where these three aspects must be considered carefully in order to move toward a proper interpretation of Scripture. The volume’s approach begins with discussion of the canonical elements (because of the place this text has within the community which affects all else), moving to genre discussions (with analysis of specific passages), and finally discussing issues like discourse, syntax, and word studies. This is the opposite direction that a number of other texts have taken and it is (in my opinion) a more welcome approach for teaching students how to properly interpret Scripture. (The wonderful folks of Kregel Academic also offer quizzes and power-point slides for professors adopting this text).

With that said, I am going to give away 1 copy of this book to a randomly selected commenter to this post (with a maximum of four entries per person and one entry per each of the following):

Leave a comment answering the question: “What is your favorite genre of Scripture and why?”

Link to this giveaway on Facebook and leave a comment with a link to your FB post.

Link to this giveaway on Twitter and leave a comment with a link to your Twitter post.

Re-blog this giveaway linking to this post.

The giveaway will end Wednesday, November 13th at 11:59PM. The winner will be announced Thursday morning. Happy commenting. 🙂

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Due to shipping costs I am only offering this giveaway to those residing in the U.S. and Canada. I will contact the winner privately to obtain a shipping address.

I love the epistles because they’re a lot of fun to work through logically and to use stentence diagramming with, and they always yield really practical things to apply to yourl ife when you interpret them correctly. They’re also a TON of fun to translate from Koine. A close runner up would be the imprecatory Psalms because you can pray them over your enemies who then call you a hater. 😉

I love wisdom literature/poetry because I believe these can be difficult for many to understand, and taking the time to find the structure, identify lost-in-translation word patterns, and cultural allusions, can offer a theological and emotional epiphany to an audience that makes them “taste and see that the Lord is good!” It’s hard work, but so is preparing a gourmet meal. And both result in a satisfying experience.

1. Favorite genre is wisdom literature. It is encouraging, challenging, wise, and down-to-earth. I never have a bad set of devotions when I’m in Proverbs or Ecclesiastes, even if the exegesis is complex sometimes.